Ah, Irony: Facebook, Meet Oedipus. Oedipus, Meet Jerome
July 23, 2020
I spotted an Axios article called “The Continuing Problem of AI Bias.” Therein was a line ripped from the lost scrolls of Sophocles. The line is:
GPT-3 can “easily output toxic language that propagates harmful biases.”
The updated version of Oedipus Tyrannus is loosely translated Zuckerberg Tractatori. The story concerns a brilliant person who created a social empire and failed to see that its technology consumed the world upon which the service was built. Irony? Cambridge Analytica? House testimony? Yes, the reality of working in one context and failing to see that “harmful biases” are what a social system generates. Which is worse? The mom thing or social erosion? Stay tuned for the next Quibi episode.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2020